Today's businesses rely significantly on communications and a variety of technologies to access, convey and process information. As such, a premium is placed on information technology that increases communications speed and bandwidth.
Conventionally, copper wires have been used in connection with communication systems. Fiber-optic “wiring,” however, is replacing copper wire in many homes and businesses. Specifically, fiber-optic cable is being more commonly used as the communications medium to interconnect communications devices such as telephones, facsimile machines and computer workstations to each other and to back-end communications systems' components. Fiber-optic cable provides significant advantages over its copper cable counterpart. Fiber-optic cable has increased capacity, which allows transmission of much more information than conventional copper wire. Additionally, fiber-optic cable provides for less signal degradation as compared to copper cable, requires less maintenance, and is more difficult to tap into. Furthermore, fiber-optic cable is far less subject to electromagnetic interference than copper wire.
Despite these advantages, most current information technology for user-premises voice and data communications does not employ fiber-optic cable to interconnect with communications devices, nor do suppliers of such information technology promote use of fiber-optic cable. Additionally, copper cable manufacturers have had a significant amount of success in improving communications over existing or slightly improved copper cable. As a result, adoption of user-premises fiber-optics has been slow. Furthermore, since current information technology generally does not require fiber-optic cable for high or optimum performance, and applications that require fiber-optic cable are limited, the push to utilize fiber-optic cable rather than copper cable has been limited notwithstanding the advantages associated with fiber-optic cable.
During construction of new facilities and renovations of older facilities, fiber-optic backbones are often installed on the assumption that copper cabling will eventually be replaced with fiber-optic cabling. In fact, it is anticipated that within the next five to ten years, most communications systems will use fiber-optic networks that bring fiber to the desk, i.e. use fiber-optic cable to interconnect communications devices to the back-end supporting information technology.
Installing fiber-optic cable and components within a premises is a costly investment. These significant costs, especially considering the costs of adopting fiber-compatible devices at the desk (e.g., phones and computers with optical network interfaces), have made businesses hesitant to convert to fiber-optic cable at this time. As such, there is a need for a cost-effective solution for installing fiber-optic cable within existing premises to allow businesses to switch to fiber-optic cable now in order to enjoy its benefits, while facilitating the future implementation of exclusive or primary optical-based (fiber-optic-to-desk) systems.